Thursday, September 17, 2015

Forest fragmentation is when forests are cut down in a manner that leaves relatively small, isolated patches of forest. Fragmentation has been identified as one of the three most common types observed in the Amazon basin. In this study in the Brazilian Amazon basin we are looking at road-building by loggers. Many of the roads in the Amazon are made by loggers. Our objective is to explain the manner in which logging roads manifest spatially, by creating fragmented landscapes in a small portion of the “Terra do Meio,” region of 300,000 km2 in the heart of the Amazon basin. Then the will combine the data with the methods of GIS to replicate a common fragmentation pattern found in tropical forests known as dendritic. The model replicates the general dendritic pattern and many branching points of the network, although segments do not overlay precisely.

Arima, E. Y., Walker, R. T., Sales, M., Souza, J. R., & Perz, S. G. (2008). The Fragmentation of Space in the Amazon Basin. Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing74(6), 699-709.

3 comments:

  1. What relation does the actual network path in the replicated model have to the simulation chartered? It appears that the data from the model tells us that the simulation and the actual network cross paths at several places. Is this significant?

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  2. Is there any way to use this GIS to help restore the fragmented forest?

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  3. Fragmentation has been identified as one of the three most common types of what? Is fragmentation bad?

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